


It's A Wonderful Christmas Carol

by Jamie_Moriarty



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Christmas Fluff, Disturbing Themes, F/M, Humor, It's a Wonderful Life, Tumblr Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 17:11:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17125412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jamie_Moriarty/pseuds/Jamie_Moriarty
Summary: On Christmas Eve, Liz is visited by one ghost who shows her a world in which the man we all know as Raymond Reddington has never been born.





	It's A Wonderful Christmas Carol

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meetmeatthecoda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meetmeatthecoda/gifts).



> Many thanks to those organizing this year's The Blacklist Secret Santa on Tumblr.
> 
>  
> 
> meetmeatthecoda, I really hope you'll like your gift and that you have a wonderful, warm and peaceful Christmas.

 

Tom Keen was dead: to begin with. There was no doubt whatever about that. There had been an autopsy and his death certificate was signed by all the right people. Red wished he could have signed it himself. If not his death certificate then at least his death warrant. Five and a half years before the man’s actual death. If not five, then at the very least four and a half years ago. Tom Keen was as dead as a door-nail.

Red knew he was dead. Of course he did. But he still would have liked to drive a stake through his heart and cut off his head and hold it to the villagers. Since he couldn’t, he had to settle for dancing on his grave drunk and high on LSD and mescaline. Fortunately, Dembe would never tell.

For if Elizabeth knew, she would be truly and extremely angry. But then when wasn’t she truly and extremely angry? Red was beginning to suspect she had developed a personality disorder of some sorts after they had returned from being on the run together. It was the only thing that could explain the sudden and utmost change in her character. His money was on split personality disorder.

Currently Elizabeth was pacing while he was seated, in his shirttails and burgundy dress slacks, no tie and top shirt button undone, a crystal tumbler of single malt in his right hand. Yes, Elizabeth was pacing. Pacing and ranting. Ranting and pacing. Suffice to say it was a day ending in -y. Red sighed and scratched with a thumb at the side of his head. Despite already working on his third glass of scotch, he was sitll way, way too sober for this.

“Elizabeth,” he said reasonably. “I’ve told you ever since we met: everything about me is a lie. Then I stressed at every opportunity that I am _not_ your father. You yourself remembered shooting your father. Taking that into account and given what we’ve both learned about the unreliability of DNA tests, you can’t really blame me for your jumping to the conclusion that, despite all of the above, I’m still your father. Besides, I told you: it’s a secret, not a lie. I _not_ your father. Raymond Reddington _is_. Raymond Reddington is dead because you shot him the night of the fire, just as you remembered. Truly, Elizabeth, you are a profiler, this shouldn’t be so hard. It’s a mystery but it’s not the script of _The Big Sleep_.”

Elizabeth’s glare could have leveled several major cities. “Who are you?” she roared. “Why are you doing this to me? How are we connected? Why are you pretending to be my father?”

“I’m not pretending to be your father, I’m pretending to be Raymond Reddington, an improved version of him at that but I made an effort to show you the real me at the ever turn.”

“The real you is a callous monster who kills like it’s nothing and who stole my life.”

“When it comes to killing, Elizabeth, aren’t you the pot calling the kettle black?”

“Don’t you talk to me about murder and right and wrong, you sorry excuse for a human being. I can’t even see my daughter on Christmas because of you.”

He felt the familiar twitch in his left cheek. “Why not? Doesn’t the woman who misplaced her own son during a drunken spat with her husband allow you access to Agnes?”

“You abandoned your family on Christmas Eve. You’re the last person on earth who should judge any parent.”

It was his turn to glare. “I never abandoned my family!”

“Right, because you’re not Raymond Reddington. I doubt you ever had a family. I can’t imagine any woman being so damaged as to marry you and bear you children.”

He calmly set his glass on the coffee table next to him and stood up, staring at her icily. “ _You_ bore children to a killer, one who murdered a colleague of yours no less, right after he beat you viciously,” he said, spitting each word out with maximum venom.

“Tom had changed.”

“Men like him never change,” he reminded her. “That’s why he stole your credentials, lied to you and ended up endangering your life… for the thousandth time by my count. You can blame me all you wish but it wouldn’t change the simple truth that Tom caused his own death. And if he hadn’t warped you in his image, you could see it as well.”

Elizabeth went deadly pale and her eyes narrowed. “I wish you had never been born,” she bit out with matching bile. “This way you couldn’t have destroyed my life simply by waltzing into it. I wish it was you who had died instead of Tom!”

With that she spun around sharply and left. The sound of the slamming door echoed for a moment behind her. Then it was gone too.

Red collapsed in his chair, heaved a tired sigh and downed his scotch in a single gulp. It was to be the first of many that night.

* * *

 _Silent Night_ resounded from somewhere nearby as Liz left Red’s safe house du jour. Apparently, the place wasn’t as isolated as it had initially seemed to her upon arrival. The carol only spiked Liz’s rage. She barely resisted kicking the door of her own car with her foot. She was seething. Seething and shivering with cold, her breath visible in the frigid air. Her coat had been left in the house behind her but she would not go back after it for everything in the world. She rushed to get in the car. Her black turtleneck was a poor shield against the freezing atmosphere. She revved the engine. She hated him. She hated him so much. She could not wait to concoct and enact yet another plan to destroy him.

Her car was speeding away almost as if by a will of its own. It was Christmas Eve. Even working at an FBI blacksite, she and her colleagues had gotten the evening and the following day off. Time off would have made anyone but Liz happy. There was nothing she liked less than to spend a day and half in her empty apartment that reminded her of the family she had lost at every turn. The car hit a bump in the country road a bit too abruptly and swerved slightly to the left. Red had chosen to spend his Christmas with Dembe in a red brick, rustic Virginia farm house. Its service road left much to be desired and there were patches of ice here and there. It occurred to her that it might be wise to slow down.

She was just about to do that when one of the back wheels caved into a pothole. The car careered to the right this time and went and went…. Liz hit the brakes. The action mitigated the impact but failed to prevent it. Her car crashed into a tree on the side of the road. The seat belt kept her from plunging forward. Her head only lightly bumped the back of her chair. She let out an expletive while she rubbed at her nape absently. It didn’t even hurt, though, and she wasn’t dizzy. She tried to start her car again and back away but the vehicle didn’t respond, appearing to be dead. She got out to inspect it using the flashlight on her phone. The hood had pooped up a few good inches and the front of her car looked seriously bent out of shape.

Sighing heavily, she stared back to the farm. She had gotten a good distance from it, enough not to worry about Red’s outer perimeter team hearing of her stupid incident. However, she could still see the lights on the second floor glinting like golden dots in the distance. Even if she felt inclined to catch pneumonia by walking back only in her sweater, she wouldn’t have gone to Red for help.

She returned inside the car intent on calling Triple A only to discover her phone had just expired too. Christmas was out to get her. She was sure of it.

Then she saw them. Like soap bubbles only glittery as if lit from within floating all around her car. She checked the back of her head again, wondering if she hadn’t hit herself worse than she had imagined and was now hallucinating. Next she heard laughter. Light and girly. Perhaps the accident had been severe and she was currently unconscious and imagining things. There was a knock on the car door on her side and Liz almost jumped out of her skin.

Liz turned her head with deliberate slowness. A blonde girl, no older than twelve, with long, wavy hair and dressed in gauzy white dress stood outside staring at Liz with oddly familiar eyes. Then the car door was wrenched ajar without the girl appearing to stretch out her hand.

“What are you waiting for? A written invitation? Or perhaps you’d prefer one on stone tablets?”

Great! She really was hallucinating.

“Come on,” the girl snapped, the acerbic tone bizarre coming from the otherwise melodic, lilting voice of such a young person. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover and only one night to do it.”

Liz blinked. She had to have this child somewhere before. People created hallucinations out of things they knew. That was why her eyes and the annoyance she saw in them seemed so familiar. Then the situation took a turn for the even more surreal because the girl tilted her head to the side exactly like… exactly like Red. Why would she be hallucinating Red as a young girl?

The girl rolled her eyes then turned them skywards. “If you had let me talk to my Dad, like I wanted, we’d be done by now.”

Then the child’s hand did dart forward. Her skin was nearly translucent and dotted with flaking drops of dried blood. She grabbed Liz’s own hand forcefully. The stranger’s hand was ice cold, her fingers wrapped around Liz’s warm skin like frost made claws. Liz tried to pull free on instinct but found that she could not. Instead the girl twisted her towards her, out of the car and down a seemingly never ending tornado of spiraling crimson. Liz screamed.

“Stop! Where are you taking me?”

“To get your wish,” the girl replied. “To see a world in which the man you know as Raymond Reddington had never been born.”

* * *

They landed in Liz’s childhood nightmare. Literally. Only that this nightmare was real. The house was burning. Flames as tall as the walls were consuming it. And the smoke… the smoke that haunted her dreams still was as black as tar and thick like dense mist. Dolls and the Christmas tress were melting with an acrid smell.

“Hm, I could as well double as the Ghost of Christmas Past, since I _am_ a ghost and this is really a Christmas from the past,” the girl commented on Liz’s left.

“How…? What…? Why…?” Liz mumbled, staring around in bewilderment. She couldn’t feel any of the heat, nor did the smoke bother her.

“Relax, I’m not your guardian angel, though I do pity the one who is. Angels are created as such. People don’t become angels after they died nor do they get their wings when a bell rings.”

“I’m passed out in my car and seeing things,” Liz reasoned. “I hope I’m not dying.”

The girl rolled her eyes again. “No, you’re fine. You barely hit your head. You won’t even get a bump. And this is very much real. Take a look around. You still only remember bits and piece of this night. I’d thought you’d wanna see more.”

Liz stared at her. “This can’t be real!”

“And this can’t be the strangest thing that has ever happened to you.”

Liz thought for a bit. “I guess no…. Who are you?”

“You’re a one-track record, aren’t you?” the girl tossed back and began to flit through the house, her feet barely touching the floor.

“Wait, where are you going?”

Liz stumbled after her from room to room until she reached one where the inferno was just encroaching on the immobile body of a man stretched on the floor. The man’s cornflower blue eyes were wide open but Liz, an experienced FBI agent, knew that he was dead. His eyes were familiar. A moment later she realized they were familiar because they were her own. This tall, blonde man dead on the floor of a burning house was her biological father. There was a still bleeding round hole on the left side of his upper chest. The gun was only a foot away.

“So I did kill him,” she murmured to herself as the memory of the shooting flashed before her eyes again.

“Yeah, you did,” the child said in a voice that sounded again well beyond her years.

Liz’s extremities felt chilled. “If I’m hallucinating this because I’m passed out, then I want to wake up. If I’m not, then please take me back. I can’t stand this place for one second more!”

“Oh, but we haven’t seen you yet.”

“Me?” Liz wondered weakly, still gaping at her father’s pallid yet still handsome face. He appeared to be in his thirties so he had to have been close in age to the imposter.

Over the crackle of the fire she could begin to hear, though, tiny whimpers and a hacking, dry cough that resembled choking.

“There you are!” her strange companion exclaimed.

Liz ran into the corridor after her and then few doors down to the room with the helpless sounds of suffocation. The closet was large, heavy set and dark. Somebody was pushing on the door from inside. Even with it closed, it had to be filling with the deadly smoke already. Liz tried to wring the door ajar but her hands went right through the wood. Before she knew she had stumbled inside and into the smoke polluted darkness within. Somehow she could still see her four-year old self huddled in a corner, cradling her burnt hand, her soft hiccuping whimpers getting weaker each second. She was choking to death.

Liz tried to reach for her child self but her hands just glided off her. Her child self couldn’t see her apparently, either. In despair she tumbled back out of the closet. The girl was waiting for her amid the burning ruckus outside.

“We have to help her,” Liz said determinedly.

The girl shook her head, her expression now sad. “We can’t. We’re not really here, we’re just visiting.”

“If we don’t help her, she… I mean, I’ll burn to death.”

“If it’s any consolation, the smoke will smother you before the flames can reach you. You’ll die but you won’t burn alive.”

Liz’s eyes filled with tears. “But… but… my father saved me.”

The rolling of eyes returned. “Think! If you shot your father and he was already dead, then how could he have been the one who saved you?”

“My mother then?”

“Err, no, but you do get one more guess.”

Horror flooded Liz. “Redding…. Red! He saved me! He took me out of the closet and then out of the house… to safety.”

“Cookie for you!”

Liz glanced around. “Then were is he?”

“He was never born, just as you wished. Since he was never born he was never here to save you. You died from smoke inhalation at the age of four on Christmas Eve.”

Inside the closet the whimpers and the coughing had stopped. Liz stared into bizarrely familiar, blue-green eyes. When Liz could no longer withstand the brunt of that gaze, she lowered her own only to note with horror that the girl’s dress had a large crimson stain on the front.

“What?” Liz started.

The girl waved her off. “Oh, that’s the story of another Christmas Eve, one we won’t be visiting tonight.”

“What’s your name?” Liz asked suspiciously.

The girl’s suddenly shuttered off expression was again familiar. “Guess,” she replied and grabbed Liz’s hand again.

This time she took Liz to a pigsty, not literally but close. The room was if not dark then in the shade and visibly filthy. It looked a lot like one of those drug den and prostitution hotels she had often raided as an FBI agent. The bed was unmade yet the man was huddled on a rickety chair in the corner. His clothes were rumpled and looked unchanged for days. He had a thick stubble, blood-shot eyes and a half drunken bottle of bourbon in his right hand. It took Liz the better part of a minute to recognize Sam.

She turned to her companion. “How? Where are we?” She paused when something occurred to her. “When?”

“A few years after your death. You never came into his life so he had no reason to go back home to Nebraska, reconnect with his estranged sister, give up the grifter life and live the rest of his life in peace… and in the suburbs. You see, you saved Sam as much as he saved you. You needed each other more than anything in the world for the better part of your lives. Isn’t that what family is? Why are you so keen on finding another one?”

Guilt pierced Liz’s heart. “What is he doing here?”

“He’s on the run from some people he owns money that he can’t pay.”

“They won’t catch up with him, will they?” Liz asked just as she thought she heard heavy steps in the corridor.

Instead of reacting to the probably imminent danger Sam just took another gulp of his drink.

“We have to do something…. We have to help him.”

The girl shook her head, sincere regret coloring her face. “We can’t. Even if we could, we don’t have time.”

“What are you talking about? There’s plenty of time….”

But the girl was already dragging her along the red swirl once more. They landed in a place even worse than the one where they had found Sam. It was quite literally a hole in the ground, dark and foul, with no windows. The only furnishing was comprised of pole in the middle. A boy was chained to it with rusty chains that had bit into his wrists all the way to the bone. His back looked like uncooked hamburger meat. Liz’s stomach lurched. She only had a very vague and fragmented idea of the story but still she needed no direction to know who this was. _Dembe_!

“This is where he found him,” she girl explained. “More dead than alive. He rescued him, nursed him to health, paid for his education. No strings. Dembe came back to him out of his own free will. This makes him think _he_ is the one who is in Dembe’s debt. This is the extent to which he think he’s a bad man unworthy of even the tiniest sign of affection. You certainly helped with that notion. I wish I could have met Dembe!”

Liz raised tearful eyes to her. “I never thought….”

“You don’t do a lot of thinking lately, do you?”

Liz swallowed hard. She had been so caught up in her own misery that it had never occurred to her that many people had overcome far worse. Dembe had been horrifically abused and he would have died because of it with those who had caused his suffering going unpunished if it hadn’t been for Red. And she had idolized the woman who had victimized Dembe! Why did she always fall for liars and manipulators?

“Take me back,” Liz said. “I get it now.”

“Not so soon, young lady. We’ll be missing the best part if we go back now.”

Before Liz could protest, she found herself pulled back down the rabbit hole… and into a real life Christmas wonderland. They were on the busy, bustling street and it was snowing like at the end of that Charlie Brown cartoon. They were now standing next to a well-lit shop window decorated in a rustic version of Christmas kitsch: fake fireplace rife with colorful stocking and adorned with a thick bow of holly, sparkly Christmas trees and a large balloon Santa with rosy cheeks. Above it the facade of the entire skyscraper was covered with a giant banner of Allan Fitch staring dreamily into the distance against a background of the American flat.

“Are we in hell?” Liz wanted to know.

“No, but the neighborhood is the same. We’re on Christmas Eve 2019… if the imposter–as you call him–had never been born.”

“I don’t believe it,” Liz said, despite everything she had seen so far. “Fitch is dead.”

“Not this time. None of the events that led to him blowing up happened. Instead, with nobody to stop it and the Fulcrum safe, the Cabal stepped up its agenda in 2017 and had Fitch elected president. He and Cabal agents strategically placed in the governments of the rest of the major world powers virtually took over the planet. They’re not through yet, though. In the US they’ve only done away with that pesky freedom of expression and that of public gatherings in so far but they’re moving fast. By this time next year the whole world will be a more commercial variant of Orwell’s _1984_.”

Liz’s insides twisted unpleasantly. “When Red spoke to me of the importance of taking down the hydra of the Cabal, I had no idea….”

“No, you just thought it was his fight. You wanted your pretty, fake husband and a fairy tale family life nobody on earth ever had. Who cared about saving the world? Certainly not you!”

Liz bowed her head, humiliated. “Now we really have to go back!”

“Don’t you want to see how the friends you don’t believe you have are faring in this brand new world? Your colleagues risked life and limb for you more than once. Do you ever remember they even exist? That’s right! You do. When you need them!”

“That’s unfair,” Liz ground out.

“No, it’s not. But if it were, how does it feel when the other shoe drops?”

Liz was saved from replying by another switch in scenery. Despite the heavy snowfall, there were two people by the gravestone: a well-wrapped older woman leaning on a younger man dressed in a long, black coat. The woman was weeping softly. Liz glanced at the tone. It read: _Donald Ressler, Beloved Son, Brother and Friend. He was one of the good ones._

“Oh, come on,” Liz yelled. “How?”

“With or without Raymond Reddington to chase, your partner was still a young, ambitious FBI agent out to make his name by capturing famous criminals. He still arrested Mako Tanida and his best friend still took over his empire by impersonating the Yakuza boss’ brother. Tanida still came after the members of Ressler’s initial task force but this time there was nobody to protect him from Tanida… or from his own best friend. Tanida killed Audrey and her unborn child but it was his best friend who killed Ressler in order to protect his dirty secret. Funny how we’re all connected, isn’t it?”

Liz wished to speak up but she had to cough past the catch in her throat first. “What about the rest?”

“Samar never came to work with the FBI, of course. She died at the hands of the Scimitar. She and Aram never met. He’s alive, though, but he was thrown out of the FBI for asking too many questions about the country’s new fearless leader and was blacklisted. He earns a living selling marijuana and tries to expose the conspiracy taking over the world in his spare time. The National Clandestine Service which has already assimilated the CIA, DIA and NSA, is closing in on him. It’s only a matter of time before he has a convenient car accident.”

Liz swore under her breath. “This is a nightmare! A Halloween and Friday 13th crossover would have a smaller body count.”

The girl’s brow furrowed in thought. “In this reality they made one this fall. It was terrible but made a lot of money. And what do you know? It did have a lower body count.”

“Tell me at least Cooper’s fine.”

“He’s better than fine. In face, he’s having a quiet drink with friends just now.”

In an instant they were in a narrow, low-ceiling room with wooden panels and earth-toned furniture. Cooper, without his jacket and with his tie loosened, was in armchair laughing and drinking with Alan Fitch, Tom Connolly and Peter Kotsiopulos.

“No!”

“Is this really so hard to believe?” the mysterious girl asked, tilting her head to the side again. “You know he beat a confession out of an innocent man. But you don’t know about Kuwait and… other things. What about the many, many laws he broke for your sake? Did it make it any less illegal if you were the beneficiary?”

“We have to go back,” Liz said urgently, her heart burning. “Please!”

When she looked at the girl now, she saw that the entire front of her dress was soaked in blood.

“What happened to you?” Liz asked. “Who are you?”

A single tear ran down her cheek and Liz was at once and painfully reminded she was just a child, despite her strange, adult like behavior.

“Tell my father Mom and I love him,” she said.

Liz’s own eyes filled with tears. She understood then why the girl’s eyes had been so familiar. She realized that deep down inside she had always known who she was. “What happened to you?”

“Tell him it’s okay, we don’t blame him, that he made us very happy. We’re only sorry it had to end so soon. But we’re even sorrier that he lost himself when he lost us.”

Light began to pull at the girl. A willowy, blond woman in a long, flower printed dress appeared at her side. “Tell my husband we’re waiting,” she said with a soft, sad smile.

“Wait,” Liz cried out. “You have to tell me… how to help him. How to make everything better. How to show him I love him… because I do… I do…. I don’t know what I would do without him. I’ve been so foolish… please…. I’ll take care of him. I’ll be Polaris, his way home, the light in his dark cave, but I need help. I’ve made so many mistakes. I hurt him so bad. I cut him so deeply. He opened his soul in front of me and I couldn’t see it…. Please… wait….”

The light, however, wrapped mother and daughter and they were gone in a flurry of rays leaving Liz in darkness… sitting on the ice-encrusted ground by the opened door of her car. On the horizon dawn spread the first hints of a purple-touched aurora. Liz blinked then checked the back of her head again. No bump, just a faint ache. She rose to her feet unsteadily. Her tears felt as if they were freezing on her cheeks. She ran a hand over her face, her heart beating a rapid staccato inside her chest. Then, without further thought, she took off running back towards the house.

When she got there, she was short of breath, sweat running down her back despite the cold. She knocked on the door with both fists. A concerned looking Dembe opened. Liz propelled herself forward and hugged the man with all her strength.

“Oh, Dembe,” she began, sounding breathless and frazzled to her own ears. “I’m so sorry. You’ve done so many things for me… you protected me and my daughter… you confided in me… you were always on my side… so kind and thoughtful…. And I never gave you the time of day.” She drew back to gaze at his face, smiling through the tears that were still flowing. “I’ll do better from now on, I promise.” Dembe was staring at her as if she had just sprung a second head. She kissed his cheeks. “I’m sorry I never really sat down to hear your story and that I acted as if I was always monopolizing all the misery in the world… when you… you….” She hiccuped. “… you’re so strong, so admirable… I can’t even imagine what you went through…. And yet you never complain…. You try to take care of those around you instead. Red’s right! You truly are a good man… far better than me. I’m so glad Red and I have you in our life… we’re so lucky…. And I am happy he was there to save you… you two just…. I’m so happy you’re here with us….” She released him to dab at one cheek with the back of her hand. “Like I said, I’ll do better…. I wanna get to know your family… and when I get Agnes back, maybe we can organize playdates with your granddaughter….”

“Dembe,” came an exhausted sounding voice from down the corridor. “Who is it?”

“It’s Elizabeth,” Dembe replied, a worried frown marring his usually stoic face. “She appears to have lost her mind.”

“On the contrary, Dembe, I think I just found it.”

She dashed past Dembe towards Red who was less than steadily ambling towards them. He had two more buttons of his shirt undone, his white, cotton undershirt showing along with a patch of pale golden skin. Liz threw her arms around his necks enthusiastically. He smelled profusely of alcohol and swung a little on his feet, practically leaning on Liz for support. She studied his face.

“How much how you been drinking?”

He blinked owlishly at her, his pupils blown, his eyes grim and foggy. “Elizabeth,” he murmured, looking dazed, though his gaze held a modicum of worry as he stared at her. “You came back. Is there something wrong?”

“Aside from the way I’ve treated you? Not much,” she replied and maneuvered so that she had only an arm around his shoulders, while the other was around his waist, as she struggled to drag him away. “Come on, up to bed you go.”

“Oh Lizzie, I thought you’d never ask.”

“Save for when the drunken stupor wears off.”

“When I’m sober I won’t be hallucinating you don’t hate me,” he said sadly.

“Oh, Red,” she replied. “I don’t hate you. In fact, I think I love you.”

“Dembe,” Red addressed the other man, who had since joined them and was helping Liz along. “Am I in an alcohol induced coma?”

“We can’t both be,” Dembe replied pushing a door open with his foot. “I haven’t had a drop.”

The room had a serious case of cottage cabin chic going with raw wood panels, a thick, brightly colored rug and a four-poster bed covered with a patchwork quilt. There were no holiday decorations around, though.

Liz and Dembe arranged Red in bed the best they could. Dembe pulled off the man’s shoes then Liz gently covered him with the three thick, wool blankets she had discovered beneath the quilt. She made a quick mental note that he preferred to sleep under blankets rather than a duvet. When she looked at his face, his eyes were closed but he didn’t seem peaceful instead his face was twisted in a mask of grief. She wondered what kind of secret pain was haunting him, thought of the wife and daughter he had evidently lost but decided those questions better left for when he would bring them up. It had never occurred to her that he kept certain things to himself simply because they were too private and too painful to share. She bent over him and kissed him lightly on the forehead.

“Good night, sweet prince,” she whispered. “May the angels guard your sleep and send you only good dreams.”

She turned around to note Dembe gaping at her with the biggest eyes she had ever seen on anyone.

* * *

Red woke up warm and comforted yet with a monster headache. He blinked the last vestiges away in the bleary, white light of the day. His mouth was dry and tasted like the inside of a sewer. He spared it no attention for a few moments as he contemplated the beautiful impossibility of his dream, his old, always painful dream of being loved and not just by anyone but by the one woman in the world who hated him the most: Elizabeth Keen.

“Dembe, I had the most wonderful dream,” he said when he noticed a form covered entirely with the quilt formerly on the bed on the recliner a few feet away from him.

A corner of the quilt slipped away. “Really?” Elizabeth asked, genuine interest in her voice. “What was the dream about?” She raised her head beaming at him.

“Apparently, it’s still going on,” he muttered.

She shook her head. “No, you’re very much awake,” she answered, the smile coloring her voice too.

He spied a glass of water and two white pills on the nightstand—courtesy of Dembe, no doubt. He swallowed the pills and drained half the glass. “What is it that you want this time, Elizabeth? These games you play are growing tiresome especially on a day like today when my head’s splitting. So please… could you dispense with the charade and kindly tell me what your angle is?”

Her expression crumpled. “Okay, I deserved that but you played your fair share of games too. So with the understanding that neither of us are completely blameless and that the past should be finally left behind where it belongs, can we not do any of the things we normally do today… on Christmas Day? It’s… half past two but it’s still Christmas Day…. Also can you believe you’re awake and this is real? Because I want to say I’m sorry I said you were a monster and that I wished you had never been born and I’d really, really like you to believe me. I’m sorry I hurt you, lied to you and plotted against you. I’m sorry I keep believing anyone but you. I’ll try and stop that from now on along with the name calling and the acting like you don’t have I heart I can bruise… or break.”

He swallowed over a throat that had gone dry again. He had to be dreaming still. This couldn’t be real. Those words couldn’t be falling from those beloved, dark pink, beautifully curved lips. “Why?” he said faintly after a long, terse pause.

Liz stood and went to sit on the edge of his bed. “Because I may not be leading a wonderful life but that’s not on you. What is on you, however, it’s the very fact that I’m alive at all. And not just me. A lot of people, some far more deserving than me, Dembe chief among them, are alive thanks to you. One life does touch many others and you’ve touched mine in ways I’m still afraid to acknowledge. What’s more, you’ve touched my heart….”

She leaned forward, coming dangerously close to touching his mouth with hers, before he had the presence of mind to scramble backwards. Liz went crimson and suddenly found a far away spot on the floor entirely too fascinating.

“No,” he groused.

“Yeah… I get that.” She jumped to her feet. “I’m sorry… I thought….” She gave a nervous half chuckled. “Clearly I misread….”

“Lizzie, trust me, you didn’t misread anything.” He made his escape via the size of the bed that was the farthest from her. “I just… I need to use the bathroom first.” He didn’t elaborate on his need to brush his teeth but a gentleman had to keep a few secrets, after all.

She brightened up a little, her lips twitching in a slight smile. “Oh! Sure….” Her blush deepened for some reason. “There’s plenty of mistletoe in the living room, anyway.”

He frowned. There was no evidence of Christmas in this house. Of that he was certain. Usually he avoided the holiday whenever he could, given the terrible memories it always woke within him.

“Elizabeth… whose living room?”

She was at the door now. “This one. And I like it better when you call me Lizzie.”

* * *

A shower, a quick shave and a change of clothes later, Red felt considerably better. He had dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a long-sleeved, black button down shirt. Then he dared venture outside the room in which he had slept and its en suite bathroom. He had no idea what was going on and what to make of Lizzie’s strange behavior but he knew Dembe was in the house too, watching over him, so that provided him with a sustainable sense of comfort. He could always count on Dembe. Once he had hoped to be able to count on Elizabeth too but oh boy, had she proved that he couldn’t!

Ella Fitzgerald’s _Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas_ was playing when he entered the living room of the safe house he was presently occupying. Said chamber had been turned into a real Christmas wonderland complete with a tall tree decorated in glittery shades of red, presents crammed underneath it, wreaths of holly in every window, a tables covered with mouth-watering treats, a large turkey and a glistening ham lording over them, and, just as Lizzie had promised, mistletoe swung from the lighting fixture and hung from every picture frame. There was even some by the fireplace that hosted a cozy, crackling fire and had bows of silver and crimson wrapped around it. Harold and Charlene Cooper, Donald Ressler, Aram and Samar, Baz, who still looked like he was recovering, which he was, in fact, Marvin and Becky and Dembe’s daughter and granddaughter milled around the buffet, talking and laughing. Red felt like pinching himself.

Liz, who had changed her black turtleneck to a lime green sweater adorned with purple and red hearts and gaudily colored Christmas baubles, grinned widely when she caught sight of him. She quickly flitted to meet up and when she did, she pressed her lips to his. The kiss was brief and close-mouthed but her eyes were twinkling and full of genuine warmth.

“Told you there’s mistletoe everywhere,” she said pointing upwards.

He spared the green plant above a rapid glance. “What’s going on… Eli… Lizzie?”

“Merry Christmas,” she said. “Later we’ll even go to church. In a sleigh! If you hear anything about a bet on when you’ll burst into flames going in, just ignore it.” She leaned forward again, kissed him on the cheek this time, her lips lingering a little too long, before she whispered into his ear. “When you’re ready, maybe I could have a name to call you. If not, I’ll just settle for sweetheart.” She withdrew, her smile even wider. “Come on. You must be starving.” With that she grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the table.

Red shot Dembe a quizzical glance. His brother just shrugged. Ressler, Cooper and Aram started when they saw him approaching them. Aram, in particular, looked like he would like nothing much but to hide behind Samar. He had no such luck for Samar all but shoved him towards Red.

“I know it looks like Aram is trying to hide from you because of the stupid thing they all did,” Samar said acidly. “But he’s just ashamed that when he found out Hallmark doesn’t make an _I’m sorry I joined a conspiracy to destroy you_ card, he went ahead and made you one himself.”

Red shook his head before he patted Aram on his back. Blanching, the tech whiz shrank in on himself a little. “Today is not a day for recriminations. And if our mouths are busy shouting reproaches, then this lovely, hearty meal will go to waste, which would be a terrible shame. Lizzie’s right: I’m famished. So let’s eat and let past mistakes to be sorted out some other day.”

Ressler, who was concentrating entirely too hard on his plate, only nodded. Cooper mumbled his agreement while his wife was watching him with narrowed eyes. Red noted not without satisfaction that Harold might sleep in the dog house that night. Outwardly, he just smiled and mouthed a _Merry Christmas_ to Samar who smiled back amicably.

Liz pressed a sparkling, crystal glass half filled with red wine. “Hair of the dog,” she said with a smile.

Red grew suspicious. “Did you set this up?”

She nodded and clicked her glass to his. “Merry Christmas… sweetheart!”

He gave her a small smile of his own, almost daring to believe that he wasn’t dreaming and that it was all real. “Merry Christmas, Lizzie!”

  


THE END

  


 

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas and God bless us everyone!


End file.
